


The End of Battles

by JustAnotherGhostwriter



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Magical attack and illness, Now officially an AU, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Sick Tony Stark, Sickfic, They fixed The Snap but they still have to fix the inter-team dynamics, Tony Stark Whump, Written before Endgame so no spoiers, and a fix-it sorta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 03:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17439437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/pseuds/JustAnotherGhostwriter
Summary: The Avengers are called to save New York (again), this time from some unknown magical person and its possibly-sentient vines. Cleanup is hell, but going smoothly, until a recently-cleared-by-medical Tony Stark starts complaining to get out of cleanup duty.At least, that's what the Avengers assume.





	The End of Battles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [taylor_tut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/gifts).



> [Taylor_Tut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut), one of the queens of Tony whump, asked me for "a fic where Tony gets hit with a magic attack, medical looks him over and says he's fine. He keeps feeling worse over the next few hours, but everyone is like "medical already cleared u bro you're good," kind of thinking he's trying to get out of cleaning, so he tries to suck it up while they clean up the city until he's totally unable to do it anymore (from fever or pain or anything really) :D:D". 
> 
> It took me far too long to do this, and it ended up being 11k of me pretending I know how to write these guys IC. Hopefully, some people can ignore the bad meme references and enjoy more Tony whump. Because, honestly, is there ever enough? 
> 
> Posted on Tumblr 14 January, 2019. 
> 
> **Warnings:** Mild emeto, mentions of pain and illness, mild mentions of PTSD, awful humour and guys being platonically cuddly. Also a warning for unreliable narrators - the things the POVs assume are not necessarily true, or what I as the author agree with, motivation and personality-wise.

“Uhhhh…” Quill’s voice echoed a little in the empty Quinjet hold behind where they all stood, shoulder-to-shoulder and looking out over the city. “Look, it may just be because I’m used to, you know, saving the _whole galaxy_ but… is a ‘city-wide, all-Avengers-assemble'emergency notsupposed to be… more noticeable?”

  


Clint was silently inclined to agree – as far as they could tell, everything in uptown Manhattan was carrying on as normal. There was certainly no looming figure or spaceship or giant robot promising doom and destruction as the code-red call had insinuated. In fact, the more they awkwardly stood in a line just off the ramp of the Quinjet and watched the traffic try to be more ridiculous than ever, the more Clint began to suspect it was all a prank. Possibly aimed directly at him. Why else would the call to assemble to save the city ( _again_. Damnit, New York) come the _day_ before Clint was scheduled to have his quiet exit from the team so he could return to Laura and the kids?

  


He’d understood why the whole team – including the We Just Helped Out This One Time crew – had been asked to stay at the New Avengers Facility and be as visible as possible in the days following the return of half the universe. The Snap, as the media had dubbed it, had been a traumatic time for all, and having the world able to see the heroes they depended on all in one, easily-accessable training facility did a lot to help settle a skittish,traumatised Earth back into rhythm again. Clint had also understood why, when the almost laughably large team had slowly been whittled down – person by person so the public didn’t panic; like weaning somebody off caffeine slowly to show them that, look, you can still survive if you’re one cup a day fewer – to the minimal number of ‘regulars’, he was one of the last on the list of scheduled exits. He whined about it a little, of course, but he was smart enough to know that actual kings who had countries to run, Sorcerer Supremes, thunder-gods, still-mostly-broken androids, not-really-an-official-Avenger teenagers with finals to study for and write and people with a job in the US army should _rightfully_ have been excused before he was.

  


He was also just a little unsure of why Banner, who had freely admitted he was going to stay at the Facility whether he was off the official lineup or not, had _still_ got excused before him. And also why the attempt to retain the most human-seeming members until last had meant that the WWE-wrestler with no filter had been given leave, but the smart-mouthed raccoon had been cajoled to stay.

  


“Well, some people need time to do the villainous destructive thingies,” Rocket said, as though reading Clint’s mental assessment of him and willingly jumping in to prove his point. “Not everybody can level a city with a _snap of his fingers_.”

  


A visible wince flowed through the group like a ripple. “Dude,” Quill groaned, as Rocket snorted and muttered about it being a good joke. “Too soon.”

  


“Yeah,” Sam piped in, falsely cheerfully, “but only, like, three decades too soon, so we’re all good.”

  


“No need for Stark to give away his Inappropriate Asshole Remarks award just yet,” Clint chimed in, because he’d forgotten, for just a moment, that whatever tight-knit camaraderie existed while you saved the universe together faded after the first few giddy days of relief-trauma.

  


Clint grimaced at the quickly-thickening silence that followed his remark. A few years ago, Stark would have filled the silence with rapid-fire comebacks of his own, or somebody else would have picked up the ribbing, and they would have gone into battle snarking and saving each other in equal measure. But Stark had not had the job or life Clint had – the dual combination that had taught him to let some things that had happened be bygones so that everybody could move on and deal with who they were and what they were doing in _that_ moment. Stark seemed to put the bandaid on the wound not only to stop the bleeding, but to stop anybody taking whatever was buried under his skin causing the pain out of him, so he could hold it there and _feel_ it for forever.

  


“We should split up and look for signs of disturbance,” Steve said in a level voice, opting to pretend the awkwardness was not near-choking. “Star-Lord, you and Rocket go the length of the Hudson and head inland. Falcon, Black Widow – you two work areal and ground from the Civic Centre and work your way in. Iron Man and Hawkeye, same but from the East River in. Bucky and I will go from Washington Heights down. Rendezvous point is Central Park; keep in contact over the coms.”

  


“What part of Central Park?” Sam asked, probably just to be otherwise.

  


“The central part of it,” Steve deadpanned back as Natasha smirked. “Let’s go.”

  


Stark’s faceplate was down by the time Clint glanced at him, and so all he got was a view of flat, angry gold. Without a word, Stark fired his repulsors and swooped at Clint, who was only not caught completely off guard because of how often he’d been Stark-lifted in the past. As he was jerked into the air, still in complete silence, he couldn’t help but warily think back to their very first battle together. _Better clench up, Legolas_. As annoying as Stark’s babbling and needling could be, the silence from the man was… unnerving.

  


“Going down,” Stark said, suddenly, and a moment later Clint found himself being dropped, rather roughly, onto a rooftop.

  


He stumbled and staggered a little, but managed to stick the landing, biting down on his tongue to stop himself from lashing out at Stark for the obviously intentional hard drop. Stark still acted like a petty child, and it irked Clint to no end. Muttering to himself, he started surveying their area, making his own way over rooftops so that he didn’t have to rely on Stark again.

  


“Anything?” Stark asked a while later, out of sight in the skies somewhere.

  


“I see two teenagers who _really shouldn’t be doing that_ ,” Clint said, raising his voice so that the duo heard him, jumped, and then scampered away guiltily.

  


“Saving the world one unplanned pregnancy at a time,” Tony said dryly.

  


“I’ve heard ‘friendly neighbourhood hero’ is the in thing, this year,” Clint fired back, eyes roving over the latest street he hovered over.

  


“The yellow butterfly headed toward you as you ask, ‘is this the way I become cool and relevant again?’ is labelled ‘copying a literal teenager’.”

  


Clint blinked, hard, his train of thought suddenly crashing to a halt. “Wait, _what_?”

  


“Guys, I think we found what we were called in to fight.” Quill’s voice sounded grimly bemused through the com-link. “And they’ve been at it for a while, looks like.”

  


“‘They’, as in, multiple hostiles?” Steve demanded.

  


“That depends,” Quill replied. “Are you calling the magical, sentient vines the enemy, or the being making them appear?”

  


“The vines are _sentient_?” Sam sounded a little out of breath. “How do we know this?”

  


“Guessed,” Rocket replied, “’cause deciding the vines can hit for themselves and being proved you were an idiot is a lot less stupid than the other way.”

  


“I say we agree with the guy who has a tree as a best friend,” Bucky piped up, mildly.

  


“Where are you two?” Steve asked, and Clint caught sight of Stark heading his way, ready, no doubt, to pick Clint up and take him to the battle scene.

  


“Hiding behind a building,” Rocket said. “Watching the vine-making-person make vines and destroy stuff with them.”

  


“ _Where_ is this building?” Steve clarified.

  


“In between another two. There’s a Starbucks on the corner,” Rocket said, helpfully.

  


“It’s near the river?” Quill added.

  


“Riverside Boulevard, Lincoln Square, New York,” F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice chimed in before anybody could start to get too exasperated. “Head for the open patch of green just off the Joe DiMaggio Highway.”

  


“Ah, crap; it _had_ to be near the highway,” Sam sighed. “Those kinds of battles _always_ end up messy.”

  


“Star-Lord, Rocket – wait until you have backup to engage. First on the scene, try and contain the threat before it reaches the highway,” Steve ordered.

  


Once again, Clint got almost no warning before Stark grabbed him and lifted him, somewhat painfully, into the sky. This time, the silence was calculating instead of awkward; Clint was sure Stark was having conversations with his AI as he flew, and he himself needed the time to get his head around the idea of _sentient vines_. It didn’t take much searching to find them; they were a sickly yellow-green, as thick as a manhole at their smallest and already causing some destruction to buildings and roads along the boulevard. And some of them had started climbing their way up the supports of the highway. There was little, Clint realised, that a bow and arrow could do against them, even if the arrow exploded. So his job would then be Team Two: Take Out The Mad Creator. For that, he had to find said person who, according to Quill and Rocket, had given them the shake when they realised they were being watched.

  


“Iron Man, drop me on the tallest roof around here so I can find this guy and take him down.”

  


Steve immediately sorted the rest of the team into the two groups, guessing at Clint’s intentions – Natasha and Sam were with him, while the rest of the team got to blow up some plants. Stark obeyed his request but, once again, did so harshly, leaving Clint to skid and swear under his breath at the sharp pain of impact. He turned to glare at the man, but Stark was already gone. So, instead, Clint called him a few choice names in his head and then set about finding his target.

  


“Wow,” Stark panted. “These things are more vicious than a pissed-off chihuahua.”

  


“At least they don’t grow back rapidly when you tear them in pieces,” Natasha said, mildly. “Or spray awful things at you. Plus, they don’t seem to be truly sentient – just alive enough to have a purpose.”

  


“How…motivating…” Stark bit back, sounding completely out of breath. “Hey, Black Widow –”

  


“Don’t you _dare_ say you’re bringing the party to us.”

  


“This is why…I never… invite you…anywhere fun,” Stark panted.

  


The talk over the com-link reduced itself to sudden, loud exclamations of pain or frustration and the occasional directive or query. It didn’t take too long for them to track down their villain of the week, but finding them and being able to stop them from creating new vines or using the ones already created to give the team a rather good thrashing turned out to be two completely different ballgames. Clint’s aim was as true as ever, but none of his arrows seemed to have any effect on the vaguely humanoid being that swatted their attempts to reach them aside like annoying flies before continuing to _sing_ vines from the earth.

  


Eventually, Natasha managed to get close enough to ram one of her Bites onto the hostile’s neck. They threw her off in a blast of pale-yellow light, but still went down to their knees, twitching under the force of the weapon. Clint fired a taser arrow at the being just as they looked like they were about to get to their feet, saw Natasha trying to fight her way out of the thick vines wrapping around her, saw Sam, wings thrown off, start to run toward their newly felled enemy in an attempt to reach them before Clint’s arrow’s effect wore off. Clint knew that neither he nor Sam would reach their target in time – the hostile was too well protected against their attacks.

  


“Need some help!” Sam yelled over the com, running as fast as he could despite the probable futility.

  


“On it,” Stark’s voice answered back, and a moment later the Iron Man suit dropped like a stone from the sky, hurtling toward their twitching, struggling enemy.

  


Clint saw Sam falter for a few steps at the sight, a mask of horror and familiarity flashing across his face before he pulled himself into the _now_ and continued running. Clint, too, continued his rush to reach them, half an eye on Nat and half an eye on Stark who _wasn’t pulling up._ Ten feet from the ground, Clint opened his mouth to yell – what, he never would have been able to say, but his heart was in his throat at the sight of Stark not stopping – and, almost at the same time, the Bleeding Edge  armour peeled away from its creator, dropping to the floor faster than even he was falling like one of those fake slime-in-a-tubs his kids played with and creating a sort of funnel-cushion that not only caught Stark as he fell but acted as a sort of slide, gently depositing him on his one knee and one hand just in front of their slowly-rising enemy.

  


And, okay, Clint could admit it – that had been a pretty damn awesome move.

  


Stark got to his feet, and fashioned crude restraints out of some of his armour. He’d managed to lock down three of their enemy’s four limbs before the hostile, until that point still but for the twitches from the electricity, reared up and slammed their free hand to an unprotected area around Stark’s thigh. The accompanying blast of light was much brighter yellow than the one that had swatted Nat away, and Stark was blown backwards with a curse of surprise that was loud in the otherwise silence of the attack.

  


Clint didn’t stop to see where or how Stark landed. He and Sam reached their enemy at about the same time and, with Stark’s armour holding most of the being in place, they made quick teamwork of finally knocking their target unconscious. As they slumped to the ground, Clint drew one last taser arrow and embedded it into the inert form. He wasn’t taking any chances. While the electroshocks worked their way through their enemy and Sam readied the restraints, Clint glanced up to take stock of the team. Steve and Bucky were quickly picking their way around still-vicious vines, Rocket was laughing his ass off at Quill trying to flail out from under a miniature vine that had seemingly snuck up on him and Natasha was half-bent over Stark, bleeding slightly but steady, as Stark got carefully to his feet.

  


“Containment vehicle and medical are both on their way. Vines are giving them a bit of trouble,” Steve reported as they all regrouped around their unconscious and thoroughly restrained enemy. There wasn’t much to reply to that, so everybody just stood, getting their breath back and idly watching Stark retrieve his nanobots now that they were no longer needed as restraints, coaxing them back around his body until the armour was once again complete. “I want everybody to be thoroughly cleared by medical before we start cleaning this mess up,” Steve eventually said into the silence.

  


“Ugh. Well this takes the fun out of saving the day,” Rocket said, idly kicking at the tip of a vine that had been sneaking closer to him.

  


“What if we just… leave them?” Quill suggested. “I mean, weren’t people going on about making New York more… ecofriendly and ‘green’?” Behind him, there was an ominous crack as one of the thick vines began squeezing a support column of the highway. Quill sighed. “Yeah, okay, fine. _Fine_.”

  


“Do it for the vine,” Bucky said, voice and face completely deadpan.

  


Natasha smirked and Sam threw his head back to look at the heavens with a deep sigh.

  


They started hacking down some of the vines closest to their fallen enemy while they waited for medical to crawl its way over to them, and even when the three heavily armoured and manned vans arrived they all personally made sure the still-unconcious being was securely contained within the vehicle and that the personnel inside were aware that they could not mess up and let the tough asshole get loose. Then they all shuffled off to be poked and prodded by medical – some more willingly than others – and Clint got to witness the rather amusing show of a fresh-faced medical professional try and perform an examination on Rocket, who obviously didn’t make the process of her first genetically-engineered-raccoon examination easier on her.

  


Steve hovered around Bucky, mostly, but then _casually_ made his way over to the medic who had examined Stark and had a quiet word with them, obviously trusting Stark’s past history with skipping medical exams over the man’s declaration that he was in the clear. And then, as medical trundled away – without giving them so much as a damn lollipop for good behaviour, let alone the good dose of carbs they were all probably craving – the Avengers got to work with city cleanup, which, despite the difficulty of hacking apart vines as thick as tree trunks that wanted to kill you, was still accompanied by memes, bad jokes about Jack and the Beanstalk and the inevitable farming/harvesting cracks thrown Clint’s way.

  


As always, the Avengers worked best as a team, each member carrying a specific part of the physical and emotional labour of the task that bettered the effort as a whole. But Stark’s repulsors were clearly the winning methods of vine-destruction, managing to cleanly sever even the thickest vines in two or three shots where it took everybody else many more. They therefore quickly and wordlessly broke into a production line – Rocket, Quill and Stark cut the vines up, and the rest joined with the Department of Damage Control crew to peel the mostly-dead plants from the infrastructure or haul the pieces into the Department of Damage Control-issued containers that had arrived with said crew about thirty minutes after the battle ended. The extra help, though a little star-struck in cases, was highly appreciated and made the going delightfully faster than Clint’s tired and frankly sore body and mind had predicted. So much so, in fact, that it began to look like they’d probably be able to do most of the cleanup in one day _and_ before darkness truly fell.

  


At first, Clint didn’t notice that a bottleneck in the production line had formed – he was focussed on pulling a truly _stubborn_ monster of a vine off a telephone pole, and wasn’t paying much attention to his surrounds. When he finally managed to peel the sucker off, there were about three eager D.O.D.C personnel who rushed forward to take it off his hands when he waved it vaguely in the air. One glance around showed him that it was not just because they were fans of his – there were people in D.O.D.C uniforms awkwardly loitering around every Avenger, and even his team members were standing around, hands empty, glancing at one another to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t a difficult mystery to solve, really: the rest of the line didn’t have much to do, because the cutting crew was cutting the vines up too slowly for the rest of them, giving a lack of things to peel or carry.

  


“We’re going as fast as we can,” Quill said through gritted teeth when cautiously asked about it, and Clint could see the evidence in his statement in the way they worked, throwing themselves and their weapons at every hard-to-cut-through, determined-to-advance, prone-to-fight-back-viciously vine.

  


Or, in the way Quill and Rocket worked, in any case. Stark, on the other hand… Was he _seriously_ just leaning against some half-crushed car, casually watching Quill and Rocket work? Clint raised an eyebrow and threw a glance over at Steve who, sure as anything, was doing the Eyebrow Thing at the side of Stark’s armoured head.

  


“St – Iron Man,” Steve started.

  


“Yeah?” Stark didn’t even turn and look at him.

  


Steve’s expression grew cautious, and he took his time choosing his next words, aware, just like everybody else, that there were still grenades buried in the spaces between the members of the Avengers that _hadn’t_ simply disappeared when Thanos snapped his fingers.

  


“We’re still needing all hands on deck, here,” Steve said in a measured tone. “We’re still only about halfway, and it’s already been…” He glanced at the nearest D.O.D.C crew member, who fumbled with a watch. “Two and a half hours,” he finished.

  


“All that backwards earth tec running out of juice?” Rocket jibed, firing four consecutive shots at a vine without looking, probably to prove he could.

  


“Suit’s fine,” Stark said, still not moving. There was a beat and then, quietly, even though the suit’s speakers, he added, “I think… _I’m_ running out of juice.”

  


For one moment, Clint was thrown by the soft confession. And then he remembered the whining, dramatic, grumpy-sarcastic man Stark had become those few times Clint had seen him sick, in the past, and he sighed. This cleanup operation was about to get a whole lot longer and a whole lot more irritating if Stark got the man flu on them. Especially because the two people who could safely deal with Stark when he was being Especially Starkish were in the Facility’s science lab and in Geneva for an S.I. conference respectively.

  


“Well, if we hurry up, we’ll be done sooner,” Nat said, steadily, gaze direct as though she could find some expression to read on Stark’s mask.

  


For another moment, Stark didn’t move. Then, without another word, he pushed off from the car and got back to work. Everybody else followed suit, and Clint was once again able to get lost in the monotony of the job until about an hour later.

  


“Dude, you just took a break, come on,” Quill complained, loud and irritated enough that Clint glanced over.

  


Stark was, once again, leaning against an object, this time with his head against the pole as well. The last time Clint had glanced up because of an over-saturation of tired but still eager D.O.D.C crew crowding around him, he’d seen Rocket and Quill still at work while Stark sat on the side of the pavement, arms hanging between his knees and head bent. For a moment, a niggle of worry flared in Clint; usually, in the suit and in front of a crowd, Stark put on a much better show than this.

  


“Stark,” Steve said, managing to sound measured. “We’re all tired, we’re all sick of this… Let’s just keep pulling our weight so we can go sooner than later.”

  


For about a full minute, there was no answer from Stark. And then, in a voice that sounded unusually mechanical, he said, “I… really don’t… feel too good. Something’s… I think something’s wrong. I… it hurts all over.”

  


“That woulda worked better if you hadn’t already been cleared by medical, dude,” Quill shot back, still irritated.

  


“They said you were absolutely fine – barely any bruises or scrapes on you, even,” Steve put in. “He told me, personally.”

  


“Thank you for butting into personal medical information, Captain Obvious.” This time, the dead, mechanical tone had a snarl to it.

  


“Come on, man,” Sam said, sounding tired but still trying to be soothing. “Just…” He waved a hand. “It sucks to be out here doing this, but we’re all here and at least you don’t have alien-plant sap all over you that smells like your grandma’s shoes after a hot day.”

  


“The D.O.D.C is here – this is their job,” Stark started, finally lifting his head so he could turn it to where Steve stood.  

  


“It’s our job, too. It always has been our job to –” Steve didn’t get to finish.

  


“To what, Rogers? To be _held accountable_ for our actions? Is that what you were about to say?”

  


Bucky, probably subconsciously, slidled closer to Steve. The D.O.D.C humans all looked about one second away from panicking. Natasha met Clint’s eyes, and Clint gave her a small nod of understanding.

  


“Okay, look. This is my last day here, and I want to go home to see in person that my youngest son now enjoys eating the chicken’s crap he finds in the yard. That means getting this done and getting back to the coast without another episode of _Romeo and Juliet_. So how about I take Stark and we go and clean up that small patch of vines on that one skyscraper they’re colonising to give everybody a good break? Stark, I’ll even pretend you pulled your weight whether you do so or not. How’s that?”

  


Steve opened his mouth, then sighed, shut his eyes briefly, and nodded. Stark jerked away from the lamppost, made his way over to Clint – like an angry teenager in combat boots; _stomp, stomp, stomp_ – grabbed him without a word and lifted him once more into the air.

  


This time, he dropped Clint so suddenly and so hard that Clint couldn’t keep his footing and ended up half-sprawling, scraping his right side and his knees as he tried to stop his skid across the roof before he fell over the other side. The spike of surprise and pain ebbed and, in its place, anger reared.

  


“Okay, seriously, what the ever-loving – ” Stark was on the roof, too. On his hands and knees, with the faceplate peeled away, retching slightly onto the roof in front of him. The anger lowered to a simmer, but didn’t completely go away. “Stark?” There was no answer, so Clint got up and moved closer. “Hey…”

  


“Piss off,” Stark gasped at him.

  


Clint scowled and flipped him the bird in response, even though Stark had his eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Asshole; I’m trying to help. What’s wrong?”

  


“Nothing – medical cleared me, remember?”

  


Clint groaned out loud. “Yeah, Stark – sullen, smart-ass teenager responses to these sorts of questions always work out well for everybody. Keep sticking your head further up your own ass.” Once again – too many times for that day, Clint suddenly realised – Stark remained silent, his eyes distant and slightly unfocused as he slowly rose to his feet. Clint couldn’t miss the wince, even if it did look like Stark tried to hide it. “Come on, man. What does F.R.I.D.A.Y say, then?”

  


He read the answer in the tense silence and the way Stark would not look at him – his AI, it seemed, agreed with medical in their assessment that Stark was completely fine. Clint frowned at Stark’s face and posture and mulled things over for a beat or two before deciding that while he wasn’t qualified to assess what was making Stark think he was not fine when everybody was telling him otherwise, he was qualified to know Stark shouldn’t be around helping to make New York Tarzan unfriendly once more.

  


His previous offer to cover for Stark had been sarcastic and aimed at stopping a stupid intra-team bickering session. This time, the offer was crafted in complete sincerity and the desire to offer an olive branch and get Stark the break he needed to figure out what was going on with him. “Why don’t you just skip out on the rest of this? Tag somebody else in to do your part for you, instead.”

  


Even as the words left his mouth, Clint realised his fatal error in the way he’d phrased things. He immediately tried to backtrack and take away the implications he hadn’t meant to make, but Stark’s head snapped towards him and there was suddenly cold ice in his expression and in his voice when he told Clint where to go and stick it. Before Clint could get out more than _I didn’t mean_ , Stark’s faceplate was once again covering his face, and he’d launched himself into the air so he could start firing at the vines they were supposed to be taking down.

  


Clint threw up his hands in disgust, irritated at both Stark and himself, and let the man go.  


* * *

The boots of the Iron Man armour hit the floor of Tony’s lab and, despite the armour still encasing him, Tony immediately stumbled into a wall and then collapsed in an undignified heap on the floor. For a long moment, he could hear nothing except his own harsh, uneven breathing and the ringing empty fullness of his head, throbbing around in meaningless circles. The only thing that stood out in the fog and the confusion was the pain that radiated through his entire body. He’d felt bone-deep agony, before, and this somehow went even _deeper_ , to an intensity that his mind simply could not wrap itself around. It felt like all the non-hurting a body usually did by default was being _pulled_ out of him inch by agonising inch; a deep _drag_ he could subconsciously feel but not pinpoint or explain, making his bones and veins and very atoms howl in agony every time the tide inside of him went out and pulled more of the un-pain and energy out of him, leaving him with nothing but the opposite of un-pain _everywhere_ in streaks of fire.

  


“- have them come to the Facility at once.”

  


F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice faded in from some distant universe, and he spoke his first thought out loud. “Though’ I muted…you.”

  


“In the suit, Boss, you did. Not in the Facility.”

  


Any other time he would have been proud of her for managing to interpret his slurred words, or would have been nostalgically bittersweet by the way she was starting to pick up inflection in her words. JARVIS had taken longer to do that, but once he’d gotten the hang of it… Nobody could do exasperatedly-worried like JARVIS could. But this time, those observations were mere flickers on a mental screen usually buzzing with so many different things at once, now reduced to absolute Blue Screen meltdown.

  


“Wh’er you saying?” He’d missed the first part of her statement, and thought it could be important.

  


“I’m in the process of scanning you using my Facility capabilities, and then I’m sending the data to medical to – ”

  


“Override,” he said, at once, still aware enough to know to do that.

  


“Boss, your temperature is currently 103.8 and showing no signs of slowing down -”

  


“This’s why I’uted you in’th suit,” Tony reminded her, trying to make his tone one of warning while he shut his eyes, rolled his forehead to the wall and unsuccessfully tried to swallow a low whine of pain.

  


“And I still cannot detect the reason for it,” F.R.I.D.A.Y finished, not at all cowed.

  


“’zactly, Fri,” Tony panted, fingers unknowingly scrabbling against the wall and floor as he sought a purchase he could not grasp in the waves of pain. “Medical… checked. You… checked. Nothing… wron-”

  


He was too far awash in the pain to register that he was making loud, unrestrained howl-moans of pain, or that he was near-writhing against the wall. Instinctively, he curled in on himself, clutching as hard as he could. And, miraculously, his touch helped cut off the pain. As the after-effects receded, he dimly heard F.R.I.D.A.Y talking to him again. Probably the same thing she’d been warning him about for hours: his body was trying to fight off some illness that didn’t exist.

  


Hell, he was so tired. And, apparently, not breathing right, he realised a fuzzy moment or several later, rectifying this by taking in a deep breath that sounded like a death rattle.

  


“Boss, _please_.” He’d never heard his AI beg before.

  


“Not… wasting people’s… time… with… nothing…” Tony ground out at her, gripping himself tighter as an instinctive experiment, and laughing slightly breathlessly when the hard pressure on his limbs numbed the pain.

  


“This is _not_ nothing,” F.R.I.D.A.Y insisted, and then continued with words Tony didn’t bother to listen to because his exhausted, burning, pain-overided mind was trying to latch on to the blessed relief he’d just accidentally discovered.

  


Pressure stopped the pain. He could almost stand to exist in his skin, again, now that he was gripping himself as hard as he could. But… _but_. His grip was fever-weak. And he could only put pressure on certain points. The energy-sapping pulls of agony still happened in the parts of his body he was currently unable to hug, and he could feel his ability to keep a tight hold on himself slipping. He was shaking too hard to keep it up for long. He needed something that would put pressure _everywhere_. He needed something _heavy_ – stronger than he could grip.

  


Couch. There was a couch in his lab.

  


Getting to it would mean he’d have to uncurl himself. That would mean agony. And… he didn’t know if he could reach it. F.R.I.D.A.Y controlling the armour had been the only thing that had gotten him in the air after Steve called the end of cleanup, let alone back to the Facility and safely through the entry hatch into his lab. And… oh. The armour was currently not around him, any more. When had it receded? Had he done that?

  


Wave of agony to get him back on track. Couch. Right.

  


Couldn’t get there. Wasn’t strong enough. Had to get the couch to him. How? Who could he possibly call? The rest of the team was probably still on their way over on the Quinjet. And they all knew nothing was wrong with him. Couldn’t call Bruce, either. Bruce was a doctor. Ish. He’d know there was nothing wrong with Tony, too, and his gentle indulging Tony sarcastically would drive Tony up the wall when it was being done while the agony -

  


-hit in a wave like it just did. Couch. He had to get the couch over to him.

  


Armour. The armour was strong enough to do so. He had an old model in the lab for (security, always security, just in case) aesthetic nostalgia. F.R.I.D.A.Y could pilot it. Could use it to drop the couch on him. He thought he ordered her to do so, but there was silence in the lab for so long that he started to think he’d only _thought_ of telling her and hadn’t actually made the words come out.

  


And then, slowly, “I’m choosing to ignore that request, Boss, because it measures in the realm of delirium and conflicts with my primary objective.”

  


“F.R.I.D.A.Y… just… get the armour…”

  


“Boss, I cannot -”

  


“Override… code…”

  


“Boss, I implore you not to -”

  


“Override… code…”  


* * *

“Hey, Bruce?”

  


Bruce looked up curiously from whatever he was reading at Clint’s voice.  “You guys are back,” he said, sounding relieved. “That was a long one.”

  


“Cleanup sucked,” Clint said, succinctly. “More on the news at eight.”

  


Bruce grinned. “Already got all the cool footage from Twitter,” he said, sounding a little smug. Then he took off his glasses and said, more seriously, “What can I help you with?”

  


“Got a scrape I think is full of stuff that I can’t reach myself that I got after medical had already checked us and left,” Clint said evenly, hoping Bruce wouldn’t ask how he got it so he didn’t have to choose whether to lie or to rat out Stark to one of his closest friends and put Banner in the middle. Again. “Could use some help.”

  


Bruce winced in sympathy and stood immediately, gesturing Clint toward the small but efficient medbay. “Sure, of course.”

  


But when they neared the room, there was a blinking light on one of the walls that made Clint frown. “Hey, isn’t that an alert from F.R.I.D.A.Y?”

  


Stark hadn’t put her all over the old compound as he had in the tower, but she was inserted in certain key rooms, of which the medbay was one. The light meant she’d tried to reach somebody, hadn’t found them, and had left a message. Bruce picked up the pace somewhat, opened the door, and called the AI’s name in question.

  


“Doctor Banner, your presence is needed in Mr Stark’s lab immediately,” F.R.I.D.A.Y rattled, so fast the words were nearly only a blur of sound.

  


For a moment, it threw both men. And then Bruce was whirling on his heel and half jogging to Stark’s lab and Clint was following, despite the pace pulling on his fresh scrapes and bruises, because something in his gut was telling him that something was very, very wrong. Bruce keyed in his access code to the lab, hauled open the door, and immediately breathed something in a language Clint didn’t understand. He got the gist, though, and a moment later he added an English equivalent when he saw Stark starfished on the ground with a large sofa pinning everything from his neck down.

  


“F.R.I.D.A.Y, what happened?” Bruce asked as they both rushed to Stark’s side and, without needing to ask the other for assistance, hauled the sofa off of him.

  


“Boss used an override code to make me pilot the old armour to drop the couch on him,” F.R.I.D.A.Y said, her voice flatter and more mechanical than Clint had ever heard it.

  


“What? Why the _hell_ did he do that?” Clint asked, incredulously staring at the seemingly unconscious genius while Bruce knelt at his side and started poking and prodding at him.

  


“Boss wasn’t… he wasn’t being very coherent at the time, but he said something about the pressure helping to ease the pain.”

  


“What – ” Clint started, but Bruce beat him to a question, his voice authoritative and clipped.

  


“F.R.I.D.A.Y, what’s his temp?”

  


“Currently 104.3, Doctor Banner.”

  


“Cause?” Bruce fired out as Clint swore again, a swoop of concern and deep, aching guilt beginning to turn his stomach.

  


“None found.”

  


Bruce jerked a little in shock, his hands all over Stark’s neck and forehead. “What do you mean, there’s no cause?”

  


“Medical scans at the scene of the battle, and subsequent scans done by the suit and the equipment present in this room have revealed that there is no cause for Mr Stark to have a fever. There is no sign of any pathogens or infections, and the only other physical wounds are minor bruising and abrasions and the three broken ribs that occurred due to the impact of the sofa.”

  


Clint realised, sort of numbly, that F.R.I.D.A.Y’s suddenly monotonous speech pattern sounded awfully like some S.H.E.I.L.D agents he knew when they were both panicked and trying not to be, and overcome with guilt. He pushed the thought away and focused on Bruce and a pale, unresponsive, sweaty Stark.

  


“We _need_ to stop this fever, but I can’t risk giving him anything if we don’t know what this _is_ ,” Bruce muttered, sounding frustrated. “And this place _doesn’t have baths_.”

  


“There’s the water fixture out back?” Clint put in, helpfully.

  


Bruce nodded sharply, once. “F.R.I.D.A.Y, is anybody close to one of your speakers?”

  


“Not at present, Doctor, no.”

  


“Clint, text somebody, then. Tell them to pour boiling water into the fountain – I need it lukewarm. And _fast_. Then help me lift him.”

  


Clint did as Bruce asked without a word, fingers flying over a text to Nat, using codewords so she knew he was being _serious_. Bruce continued to converse with F.R.I.D.A.Y over symptoms and happenings, but the story remained the same: Tony’s body was frying itself, and nobody knew why. Helpfully, Clint’s brain chose to remind him of all the early warning signs from earlier that day: how Stark had been visibly flagging. How Stark had _told_ them something was wrong. How he’d seen Stark on his hands and knees, retching and clearly not okay, and hadn’t told anybody because Stark was a damn big idiot, and, apparently, Clint was one, too. He’d messed up, he knew. And big time. Never _mind_ that medical had cleared him – Clint should have known better. And _done_ better.

  


Bruce grabbed Tony’s torso, and Clint grabbed his legs, and together they began the arduous task of hauling Stark to the back entrance of the Facility, where a gaudy water fixture that was apparently an in-joke between Rhodes and Stark stood. Stark didn’t so much as twitch once, and the lack of animation in the man kept the grim reality so fresh in Clint’s mind that he couldn’t quite fathom, for a moment, why the rest of the remaining team were all gathered around the fountain waiting for him with various amused expressions on their faces. Even Wanda was there, dragged away from Vision’s cradle-side and standing, cross-armed and bemused beside where Steve and Bucky both held a giant hot water urn each. Only Natasha didn’t look entirely convinced that the world’s biggest joke was about to unfold.

  


“Oh, man, are we throwing a sleeping Stark in the -” Sam started, voice amused. And then he must have _really_ caught sight of Stark, because his tone changed completely. “Oh, _shit_.”

  


Clint and Bruce didn’t bother to acknowledge him or any of the other demands to know what was going on as people either caught sight of Stark or got caught up in the confusion about why people’s faces and reactions were suddenly saying that things weren’t funny, any more.

  


“How warm is the water?” Bruce panted as he and Clint approached the fountain. “Guys!” he snapped, when nobody answered fast enough.

  


“Lukewarm, like Clint asked,” Steve said, and Sam hurried forward to help Bruce and Clint lift Stark into the fountain water. “What’s going on? What happened?”

  


Clint relinquished his hold on Stark’s legs and stepped away with Sam before he glanced back at the concerned, and slightly confounded, looking Rogers. “We don’t know. F.R.I.D.A.Y has been scanning him, and she can’t find anything wrong. But he’s got a fever of 104, and we have to get it down, and Bruce says we can’t use medication safely until we know what’s got him feverish and why neither medical nor F.R.I.D.A.Y can pick it up.”

  


Bruce was holding Stark up against the side of the fountain with one arm, awkwardly, and cupping water over his forehead with the other, methodologically trying to get the water to cool him off. And it seemed to be working – for the first time since Clint had seen him that afternoon, Stark stirred and let out a little wordless noise, obviously coming to. And then Banner trickled another handful of water over his forehead, and the water ran over Stark’s face, and the man completely _flipped,_ going from unconscious to wildly fighting Bruce in less time than it took Clint to take two full breaths.

  


“Tony! TonyTonyTonyTony – Hey! Hey! _Hey_! Look at me! _Look_ at me!” Stark almost managed to twist out of Banner’s hold, but that only plunged him further into the water, which made him thrash wilder. Several people took steps forward, instinctively trying to help but not quite knowing how. “Look at me!” Bruce grabbed him tight, again, and hauled him to the wall and then grabbed Stark’s chin, forcing the man’s gaze to his. “ _Look at me_. You’re fine. You’re okay. I’m sorry, Tony, I’m sorry. But you’re burning up. And we need to get your temperature down, okay? So you need to stay in the water.”

  


“Bruce… _no_ … _No_ , I -” Stark choked and tried, once again, to get free.

  


“I’m sorry,” Bruce repeated, and he sounded it, even though he was also very obviously unrelenting. “I’m sorry; I know. I know. But you need to. I won’t put any more on your head, okay? I won’t. But I need you to stay in the water, Tony. Okay? Please? For me?”

  


The noise Stark made was unnameable. “No…no more…”

  


“No more on your head – I promise. But then you gotta stay, okay?”

  


Stark didn’t reply, simply slumped, suddenly boneless, leaving Bruce to clumsily catch him. And Clint hadn’t done all he could have – should have – before, but he’d learned a long time ago that a man’s current actions and future actions said a lot more than his past ones. So he climbed, in jeans but thankfully barefoot, into the fountain and plopped down behind Stark and wordlessly pulled him against his side, holding him above the water so Bruce could have both hands free. Stark was out of it, again; adrenalin all burned through. Clint wished for the snarky or lewd comments that would ordinarily have followed his attempts to ‘cuddle’ Stark in any way.

  


“Somebody get me Strange,” Bruce called over his shoulder, not bothering to check who followed his order as he checked Stark’s vitals and then began pouring water on the parts of Stark, except his face and head, that protruded out the water.

  


“Doctor,” Wanda said, quietly, and held up the scarf she’d been wearing to Bruce. He blinked at it for a moment. “A… a…” She gave up on the word she did not know. “Wet it. For his forehead.”

  


“Thanks, Wanda,” Bruce said, his voice becoming the closest to its usual gentle lilt for the first time since they’d found Stark in his lab.

  


Bruce dipped, wrung and folded the scarf and then placed it on Stark’s forehead. The man twitched a little in response, but didn’t otherwise react, once again seemingly gone to the world. And then Bruce sat back on his haunches and scrubbed his hands over his face, and Clint watched Stark’s chest rise and fall and continued to pretend he wasn’t hyper-aware of all the people hovering silently around and watching, at a loss of anything to do but also not willing to let Stark out of their sight. Murmuring started up, but before the speakers could decide to make themselves better heard the usual spitting fire oval of a portal appeared just before the door and Strange stepped through. He took in the scene and raised one eyebrow at the sight of the three in the fountain, looking more bemused than worried.

  


Until Bruce started rattling off Stark’s medical stats to him – then Strange’s face morphed to one of wide-eyed comprehension before he was leaping forward, ripping off his dishwashing-yellow gloves and shoving his fingers on Stark’s neck, demanding to know what happened. The response he got from Steve did not please him at all.

  


“Oh, so _something_ was attacking the city, and _something_ happened between then and Stark coming home and now _something_ is wrong. How detailed, Rogers,” he snapped, gently hip-checking a hovering Bruce out of his way.

  


“Medical checked him out post-battle and they cleared him,” Steve said, a touch defensively.

  


“Wonderful – they studied all those years to become _professional_ idiots,” Strange fired back without missing a beat, giving Clint his first real-life encounter with the infamous surgeon he’d heard so much about before the man had taken up magic.

  


“His AI has been routinely scanning him since the battle and has found nothing to explain his rising fever,” Bruce put in, his hands nervously spinning his glasses around and around. “Medically, he’s sound. He _should_ be sound.”

  


“What magical interferences does his AI scan for?” Strange asked, scarred hands finally leaving Stark to hover in a strange formation above the man’s chest.

  


“I…” Bruce blinked, looked to Clint bewilderedly, and then swung his gaze to the rest of the team, looking for answers Clint knew none of them had. “I don’t… think she scans… for magic…”

  


“But this being you were fighting earlier was magic? And used magical attacks?” Strange said in a tone full of barely-restrained patronisation. Bruce looked to Steve, who murmured a slightly abashed affirmative. “Well, then, I’m thinking the cause of the mysterious non-medical fever _may_ be _magic_ , then.”

  


If Strange was expecting a reply of some sort, he didn’t show it, but simply started moving his fingers in odd patterns around Stark’s body, muttering things too soft for Clint to hear. Everybody else was tensely silent, hovering as close as they dared and watching the proceedings like hawks. They needn’t have looked quite so closely – nobody could have missed the sudden yellow-green flare that appeared from Stark’s thigh, right where, Clint was guessing, the Vine Master had slammed an attack into Stark earlier. Strange’s face, when he stopped his magic and straightened, was grim.

  


“I don’t know if I can combat this magic without the caster. I’m going to send word to Wong to try, but our best course of action is to make the guy who did this help us take it back. Does anybody here know where he’s being held?”

  


“I can find out,” Natasha said, at once, and turned on her heel without waiting for a response.

  


Strange nodded after her. “What do we do in the meantime?” Bruce asked urgently. “Surely there’s _something_?”

  


Strange tipped his head. “You can give him whatever fever reducers and low-dose painkillers you have in stock to try and combat the fever. Other than that…” Bruce’s jaw worked, and Strange sighed and softened, a little. “I’m sorry, Doctor Banner, but this magic is… It’s a drain. It’s pulling energy out of him in a way that his body is interpreting as an invading pathogen and extreme pain at the same time. There’s no real cause to fight, in this case, so we’ll have to try and tackle the symptoms for now; try to lesson them and make him as comfortable as possible.”

  


Bruce opened his mouth, looking frustrated, then simply sighed, nodded and muttered about going to find some medication, then. Strange knelt beside the fountain and reached for Stark again, checking his pulse. His frown deepened and, dropping his hand, he began to massage Stark’s chest. Clint let go of his hold, shifting back so that Strange had more access, balancing Stark precariously about him. It wasn’t three minutes later before Stark began to twitch, his face no longer slack but scrunched in discomfort, his exhales starting to sound like whines.

  


“What’re you doing, dude?” Quill demanded.

  


Strange was frowning even deeper. “This isn’t me,” he muttered, mostly distracted. “This _should_ be his reaction; I assumed he was simply too deeply unconscious to show…” He puzzled for another moment, hands hovering over Stark’s chest, and even though he wasn’t touching him, Stark began to writhe harder, breaths beginning to turn to pants. And then Strange’s expression cleared. “How did you find him?” he demanded of Clint.

  


“Uh… passed out? On his lab floor. Under a sofa – he made his AI drop his sofa on him.”

  


“He _what_?” Sam exclaimed.

  


But Strange smiled, slightly. “Gate control theory,” he said, just as Bruce reappeared.

  


“ _Oh_ ,” Bruce exclaimed, just as Clint demanded, “ _What?_ ”

  


“The gate control theory of pain,” Strange said, beginning to massage again, but this time doing so all over Stark’s torso.

  


“If you… uh… flood the brain with non-painful input, it ‘closes’ the ‘pain gates’ in the brain,” Bruce picked up from Strange. “So the more you force yourself to feel something else, the less your brain processes and informs you about the pain.”

  


“Hence dropping a sofa on yourself – that’s input to the nth degree,” Strange said, and then muttered, “Damn, it, Stark, you idiot,” under his breath.

  


“So that means…?” Rocket said, his voice still blank from comprehension.

  


“That means, Barton, that you’d better start holding him very tightly once again,” Strange said, and Clint followed his orders at once. “Keep as much input as you can going into him at all times; it will definitely help.”

  


“Strange. I have the location. Let’s go.” At the sorcerer’s look she put on a smirk that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m coming with to… _assist_ … in the information extraction.”

  


Strange snorted, rose to his feet and then, just before he reached Natasha he turned back somewhat to Bruce. “Banner… I’d add some nitroglycerin to the cocktail you’re going to give him.”

  


Bruce’s face blanched. “Bad?” he said, sounding resigned.

  


“Not yet, but I think it’s going to go there.”

  


“Get the counteraction quickly, then,” Banner almost-demanded, and Strange nodded before opening a portal for him and Natasha to walk through.

  


Bruce scrubbed at his face, again, for a moment, and then settled beside Stark and started administering medication. Clint held on while Stark got the shots, and for ages afterwards, until his muscles were starting to strain from the continuous pressure. Bruce took Stark’s temperature with a digital thermometer and then declared they could take him inside. Steve started forward, hesitantly, wordlessly offering his strength, but before Bruce could say anything tendrils of red wrapped themselves coyly around Stark’s form and lifted him right out of Clint’s arms.

  


“Where are we taking him?” Wanda asked, calmly, her eyes glowing red and her hold on Stark steady.

  


They took him to the medbay, small as it was, because F.R.I.D.A.Y was integrated into the room and because having sensors on Stark made them feel better, even though they couldn’t help much. Before Wanda placed Stark on the bed, Bruce kicked off his shoes and lay down first, telling her to put Stark on top of him so he could wrap himself around Stark as best he could. Steve excused himself in a mutter to go and call Pepper – she didn’t know anything about this, yet, and he thought she had the right to. Sam dragged a chair to the foot of the bed and began massaging Stark’s feet and wet-underarmour-clad legs with practised hands, while Banner let himself drop his face against Stark’s hair, something in his face _daring_ anybody to say anything. Even Rocket didn’t make a comment, choosing instead to slink away and leave Bruce, Stark and Sam in peace.

  


He came back, though – all of the team cycled through the room, even though most did not attempt to help massage Stark but simply talked, quietly, to Bruce or amongst themselves or sat silently in the corner, keeping watch over something they could not see. Clint took over from Bruce when the other man had to relieve himself and also do doctor-y things on Stark, again, and Clint saw him frowning at the tablet screen in his hand when he quietly asked F.R.I.D.A.Y for an EKG. Unease writhed in Clint’s gut, and, when Bruce was out the room for a moment, he decided to try and emulate the massaging he’d seen Strange do on Stark’s chest. It had looked simple enough. And it was supposedly to help, right?  
  


About three minutes in, Stark jerked almost-violently in his arms. “ _Don’t_.” Clint supposed the word was supposed to be a snarl instead of the breathless half-moan. “’n’t touch.”

  


“Okay, okay.” Clint raised both hands in surrender, even though Stark hadn’t actually managed to open his eyes. “Jeesh, _sorry_.” Stark grunted, softly. And then, a few beats later, Clint added another _sorry_ for everything since the accords that they hadn’t spoken about. Stark didn’t reply to that, but he did suddenly move so that he was more in Clint’s embrace, face almost in the crook of his neck, and Clint thought, not for the first time, that the beginning of understanding and mending looked flipping _weird_ every time he came into contact with it.

  


Despite whatever Banner was trying, and despite the fact that Quill had also tried his hand at massaging, looking unsure and awkward and red-eared but also determined, Stark continued to deteriorate. His fever continued to climb slowly but surely, no matter what they did, and by the time evening had turned properly to night he was wheezing rather than breathing, twitching and moaning no matter how hard Bruce held onto him from behind or how frantically people massaged. Nat wasn’t answering Clint’s messages, meaning she had nothing to report, and everybody was on edge, even Bucky and Steve who had yet to hover closer than just outside the doorway of the medical room.

  


Clint had just started to wish something, _anything_ , would come and break the silent, brooding, watching tension, when his wish was granted in the worst possible way.

  


“Hey, guys, what’s going on? I couldn’t find _anybody_ in this place and F.R.I.D.A.Y said you were all…” Everybody swivelled to face Parker, whose cheery expression slipped somewhat at the sight of the wall of stony Avengers.

  


“Hey, kid, don’t you have, like, exams?” Sam said, trying to casually block Peter’s view of the medbay.

  


“Yeah, but it’s Friday, so I have all weekend, and Mr Stark said I…” Peter trailed off. “What’s going on? What’s wrong? Whose breathing is all…?” His face turned pale. “Mr Stark?” he called. “Mr Stark, are you here?”

  


“Kid,” Steve started, gently warning, but Parker’s face turned determined and he darted and twisted his way into the room.

  


“What _happened_?” he yelped, catching sight of Stark, his eyes huge as they turned on Bruce. “What’s _wrong_?”

  


Bruce filled him in as gently as he could – everything from the call to assemble ( _“You should have called me, too! I could have helped!”_ ) to Strange figuring out the mysterious non-illness that was currently attacking Stark. Banner glossed over how much pain Strange had said Stark was in, simply alluding to the fact that the magic was making Stark uncomfortable and that the other input was helping with that. Or had been, Clint added, silently. It looked like their miraculous temporary cure was losing its effectiveness.

  


Clint’s grim thoughts proved to be right when Stark’s wheezing turned to low whines of pain, his fingers twitching compulsively even as Bruce tried to calm him and asked Sam to administer another shot of pain medication through the IV line. Stark was sweating profusely yet again, and Banner’s face was full of lines of worry. Parker’s rise from the end of Stark’s bed was sudden enough that every eye in the room turned to him automatically. Ignoring their gazes, but turning almost as red as the suit he still wore under his unzipped hoodie, Peter crawled carefully onto the bed and then slowly lowered himself on top of Stark before wrapping his arms and legs over him. Bruce and he had to turn their faces to opposite sides to avoid bumping noses – or something more embarrassing – but neither of them said a word about it. And, miraculously, neither did anybody else.

  


“This isn’t working,” Peter said into the silence, almost an hour later. He sounded almost _angry_. “Doctor Banner… his heartbeat.. I…”

  


“I know, kid, I know,” Bruce said, heavily.

  


“There’s… there’s gotta be _something_. I mean… I mean surely… F.R.I.D.A.Y, scan him. Search… search other ways to… to help with pain. We have to…”

  


Bruce let go of Stark with one hand and placed it on Peter’s back. His face was still turned away from Clint’s corner of the room, so he saw no expression. But there was no missing the stiffness of Parker’s spine. How close was it to midnight? He was supposed to leave the next day, early in the morning. Supposed to go back to his wife and kids. But Clint hadn’t been able to leave the _room_ for hours. If Stark was still trapped in medical agony when his ride came… Clint was almost positive he knew that he’d be staying put.

  


“Doctor Strange and Agent Romanov have returned,” F.R.I.D.A.Y blurted, and Clint felt his heart lurch in hope.

  


Those outside the doorway and just within it all flattened themselves against the walls – and there was something you didn’t see every day; Captain America and the White Wolf trying to make themselves small – and Strange strode in, magic already on his fingers. But instead of going straight to Stark he began drawing a pattern on the floor.

  


“Is he seriously doing a pentagram?” Wanda asked, shocked into incredulity.

  


“No,” Strange said, simply, while Peter finally gave in to curiosity and twisted to look, doing an awkward pretzel on top of Stark to manage it. “Same principle, though. Sort of.” Design complete, he turned to the Stark-sandwich on the bed. “We have to get him inside this. But he has to be concious, and he has to be standing alone.”

  


“ _Standing_?” Rocket barked. “Dude, I don’t know how hard your cloak banged you into a building, but – ”

  


“He has to be able to make a line with his body, or this won’t work,” the sorcerer snapped back, making only a little bit of sense.

  


He left his magic circle and made it to Stark’s bedside, making Peter withdraw and Bruce look politely away as he began trying to wake the man. When traditional methods didn’t work, he sighed and began massaging at Stark’s chest. Clint winced a little, remembering the genius’ reaction to the touch earlier. But even that didn’t seem to be rousing the man and Clint’s worry began to sink deeper.

  


“Doesn’t that… I mean… doesn’t it hurt?” It was only because Clint was so close that he heard Parker’s very soft question.

  


“No, actually, this is helping regulate his heartbeat a little.”

  


“No… I… uh… I mean… _you_. Isn’t it…?” Parker went red, eyes sliding very obviously away from Strange’s scarred hands.

  


Strange let out an almost-laugh. “Like hell,” he admitted, voice even quieter than Parker's.

  


Clint saw Parker lick his lips. “Then… could you… teach me? So I can, instead?”

  


It was one of the most bizarre sights Clint had ever witnessed – the counterpart of the Hulk acting as a bottom body pillow to an unconscious, sweaty, wheezing Stark while the Sorcerer Supreme talked Spider-Man, who was still mostly lying _on_ Stark, through massaging the genius’ chest correctly. When Peter got the hang of it, Strange asked Bruce where he kept a certain drug and then carefully fed it into the IV line. Stark started stirring not long after that.

  


“Pete?” he whispered, sounding confused.

  


“Hi, Mr Stark.”

  


Clint wanted, suddenly, to tell Parker to stop touching Stark’s chest. He didn’t want to have to see the hurt he _knew_ would flash all through the kid when Stark reacted violently to Parker’s massaging. But Stark’s eyes roved over Parker, and what his hands were doing, and then they rolled drunkenly, not quite tracking, to Strange without so much as an increase in his breathing. The noise he let out was nowhere near any language Clint had ever heard, but Strange seemed to half-understand enough to reply.

  


“We know how to make it stop. We just have to get you into that circle, there.”

  


Strange motioned Peter to get off, and the kid reluctantly agreed, slipping right to the end of the bed until Strange and Bruce started helping Stark into a seated position – then he shimmied forward, again, and pulled one of Stark’s arms over his shoulders while Bruce disconnected the IV line. Single-handedly, Parker managed to heave Stark off the bed and keep him on his feet, a sight that would have been comical under any other circumstance. Banner took Stark’s other side and they began carrying Stark – there was no other word for it; the man’s feet weren’t even lifting, his head was lolling onto Parker’s shoulder, his entire body slumped bonelessly – to the magical mark on the floor Strange stood in front of.

  


“Stark… it will only take a moment, but you need to be standing for it.” Stark didn’t react. “Tony. _Tony_.”

  


Stark opened his eyes and managed to fix a wavering, dull-eyed glance on Strange. Slowly, with such painful precision that it chewed apart Clint’s gut, Stark pulled his arm from Bruce’s shoulders. He almost toppled right over, only Parker’s quick reflexes keeping him on his feet, mostly flopped over like the doll Lila used to hang over her arm. The sight was sickening in its wrongness. And it only got worse – no matter how much Stark tried to get his knees to lock, they simply wouldn’t. Three minutes of obvious struggling only resulted in him gasping for breath and slumping almost entirely against a completely freaked-out looking Parker.

  


“What if he kneels?” Bucky asked, suddenly. Clint tried to pretend he didn’t see how violently Bucky’s voice made Stark _flinch_. “That will still make a line with his body, right?”

  


Strange mulled it over. “It… could work.”

  


“Dude,” Quill said, quietly, “it’s the best you’re gonna get. And even that’s gonna be a cost.”

  


Bruce moved back to Stark’s side, and he and Parker helped the trembling man into the circle, lowering him to his hands and knees before they let him go and backed away. Stark was exhaling whines of pain, again – no sensory input meant he was feeling it _all_. A particularly guttural moan had Bruce putting a hand on Peter’s shoulder to hold the kid in place – he looked as though he was about to either bolt to Stark’s side or out the door.

  


“I need you up straight,” Strange said, very quietly, almost gently. “It won’t take long.”

  


With momentous effort, Stark pushed himself onto his knees, weaving drunkenly the whole way and swaying like he was at a concert once he was mostly upright. His face was completely devoid of colour except for the fever-red splotches, and he wasn’t even bothering to try and keep his eyes open.

  


“ _Please_ ,” was all he whispered.

  


Strange chanted so fast the words seemed to be a blur, making motions from Stark’s face to the ground and back up again. The circle glowed, Stark’s thigh glowed in response and then the glow rose out of him, and Strange caught it and pulled it into pieces in the air. The glowing stopped and Stark folded like a puppet with cut strings. _(“I got no strings to hold me down…” Whispered gleefully in some part of Clint’s mind_. _)_ Bruce, Strange and Parker all darted forward at once.

  


“ _Hell_ ,” Stark groaned. “’s… gone. ‘S… f’ly… gone…”

  


Parker laughed, high and shaky, and the two doctors started attending to their patient, and just like that it was all over. Crisis averted. Everybody could go to bed with relief thrumming in their veins, looking forward to the next day with nothing hanging over their heads.

  


Except… those things never really over when they ended, were they? Clint knew this with a long-aquainted certainty, and he knew he wasn’t the only one on the team who did. But they never seemed to _really_ acknowledge that fact. And he was starting to think that maybe they should – that maybe it wasn’t only Stark who kept the wounds festering, and that maybe even Stark didn’t do it as willingly as Clint had always flippantly dismissed.

  


Sometime near the crack of dawn, once Clint had finished packing, he returned quietly to the medbay. Pepper had gotten in sometime near three AM, and she was seated on the bed beside Stark, his head in her lap. Curled up against Stark, like he’d been since they’d put Stark back on the bed despite gentle reminders that it was over and that Stark didn’t have to be held any more, lay Parker, dead to the world. Pepper had one hand on his head while the other played with Stark’s hair, gently, rhythmically.

  


There was a look on her face that he’d seen on Laura’s so often that it cut Clint straight to the core, burning-agony in its bitter-sweet mixing of love and pain.


End file.
